Tell Me About When I Was a Baby
by LadyClassical
Summary: What if Sirius Black had lived to meet James Potter Jr. (James Sirius Potter)? Pure fluff. :)


It was around 3 a.m., August 31, 2004, and Sirius Black was fast asleep in a busy hospital waiting room, surrounded by Healers and anxious family members and friends. It had probably been about eight hours since they'd all been told that Ginny had gone into labor and they needed to meet her and Harry at St. Mungo's. Mrs. Weasley and Harry were in the delivery room with her, and everybody else waited outside. They already knew the baby was going to be a boy, and Sirius knew the baby's middle name would be his.

Since he was a pretty heavy sleeper, not even the sound of the baby crying woke him up as it should have. Instead he woke up to someone shaking him—the father of the baby himself, Harry James Potter.

"Come on, Sirius," he was saying, as everything came into focus. "Don't you want to come meet him now?"

"Whuh?" Sirius finally started awake, and Harry (not without some difficulty) pulled him to his feet.

"The _baby_ ," said Harry. " _James_."

The two of them went into the delivery room, where Ginny, Mrs. Weasley, and the Healer were waiting. Ginny had a little bundle, presumably the baby, in her arms, wrapped in a white blanket with a blue hat on his head. Sticking out from under his hat Sirius noticed untidy black hair, which had apparently been passed down three generations now. One of the baby's tiny pink hands was clinging to Ginny's hospital gown. The baby was still crying, but Ginny was rocking him back and forth, and once she kissed him on the head.

Harry took the baby out of Ginny's arms and into his own. Slowly the crying subsided. Now he was staring with wide, curious eyes. Sirius noticed the baby had the hazel eyes of James Potter Sr., and that reminded him of the gift he'd bought in Diagon Alley a couple months ago.

"I bought him a gift," said Sirius, pulling it out of his pocket. In his hand he held what looked like an oversized golden Snitch.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"It's a Junior Snitch," Sirius told him, grinning. "Watch…"

Sirius set the Junior Snitch in front of Baby James. It flew this way and that, but never left the infant's general vicinity. Of course, he had the motor skills of a potato at this age, but when Baby James saw his new toy, his eyes lit up. As soon as the Junior Snitch got close, he would reach out for it, it'd dart away, over and over, as he screamed with laughter.

"It's bewitched to stay close to him, the same way a normal Snitch is bewitched to never leave the Quidditch pitch," Sirius explained as they watched. "And when he gets old enough to be able to catch it, it'll light up and play music. When I saw it, I knew it was perfect."

"You give the best gifts, Sirius," said Harry, of course remembering the 1993 Firebolt and the knife that would open any door. "Do you want to hold him?"

"Um, well, I…if you want me to." Sirius was a little surprised by this preposition, but he took Baby James into his arms, while Harry held onto the Junior Snitch. And he couldn't help but remember, twenty-four years and one month ago, wearing a younger man's clothes, he'd been holding a baby too, one who looked very similar…

"All right, Sirius?" said Ginny.

"It's just…he looks so much like you did, Harry, besides the eyes, anyway," Sirius told him. "When I held you for the first time, I mean."

"You still remember that?" Harry asked.

"Well, it was only twenty-four years ago, you know," said Sirius, reminiscing. "It's clear like it was yesterday. I remember you took almost twelve hours, but firsts are hardly ever speedy, you know…Moony and Wormtail and I were waiting in the waiting area for what seemed like the longest time…then I realized at the last minute I'd forgotten to buy a gift, so I ran up to the fifth-floor gift shop and bought a onesie that said 'Daddy's Little Seeker'…"

Much to his shock, Sirius noticed what felt like a tear in the corner of his eye, but he wiped it away before anyone saw (hopefully). "So by the time I got back, you were already born, and your mother had you in her arms, and I'd never seen anyone look happier than your parents did at that moment. I'd never even held a baby before, but James let me hold you first, and that's when he told me I was going to be the godfather."

"So he saved it until then?" said Harry. "Did he want it to be a surprise?"

"I guess so," Sirius told him, and at the new parents' expectant looks, he continued with his story. Unfortunately, he found himself beginning to get a bit choked up. "And then…I remember…you stopped crying soon, and fell asleep…and I held you against my shoulder—you were no bigger than a minute—and James just walked over and said, 'Guess mischief is managed forever, huh?' and Lily laughed, James pulled me into a hug, and I said, 'Congratulations, Prongs…'" Sirius realized he was holding Baby James the same way, up against his shoulder. "And you made this little fussing noise in your sleep, and I held you out so we three could look at you one more time, and you know you're just the picture of your father, and I said…I-I said…"

"What'd you say, Sirius?" Ginny's voice was hardly over a whisper. That was when Sirius noticed that both of them were staring at him, and he had tears running down his own face. It was so hard to get the rest of the sentence out; it felt like his throat had closed up, the way it does when one has an allergic reaction.

"I-I said…I said, 'You're James Potter's son, all right.'" Sirius paused and swallowed. "I know you and your parents didn't have each other for very long, Harry, but they loved you so much. I remember James and I watching a Quidditch game while Lily rocked you to sleep in her arms, singing this little song…I remember when I first fed you a bottle and you spat up all over me…When you were about a year old the three of us were on the rug watching you try to crawl, and we started screaming like idiots when you did…And I'd hold you in my lap while your father used his wand to make sock puppets move on their own, you always loved that…and your first word, it was 'kaffel'…" Sirius sniffed, then laughed.

"I'm sure I meant 'Quaffle'," said Harry, who was laughing too.

"Well, that's what James insisted upon, and he couldn't have been prouder." Sirius was smiling through teary eyes as he held James Potter Jr. "Just like your parents, I was looking forward so much to watching you grow up. No thanks to a certain traitorous waste of life, I couldn't." (Sirius might have used a nastier term to describe his ex-friend, but there were young ears in the room.) "It was great to meet up again later, though. I could only hope I was a good godfather."

"Sure you were. You were the closest thing to a father I had."

With Baby James in one arm, Sirius hugged Harry with the other and said quietly, "That…that means so much to me."

Said Harry, "I figured it would."

-the end-


End file.
